


love to fight with you (all night)

by animal0123



Category: The Fosters (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F, Homophobic Language, Season 2 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 13:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animal0123/pseuds/animal0123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A part of her childhood she could have done without, Taylor thinks nowadays, is going through that whole phase where she wanted to be like Baby in Dirty Dancing so bad that she told everyone who would listen that she’d never find a guy as great as her dad, before growing up a few years and realizing she had actually been telling the truth all along and karma sucked, big time.</p><p>That’s the long way of getting around to saying that Taylor’s a giant fucking lesbian with a giant fucking gay obsession with her best friend, hurray. Thanks, life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love to fight with you (all night)

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this about a year ago and posted it to tumblr, but i still think it's not bad, so i'm christening my ao3 with it (parts of it kinda annoy me but i can't really be fucked to fix them at this point)
> 
> mostly season 2 compliant, though i make no promises for season 3, with background jonnor. title and lyrics filched from adele and cyberbully mom club. don't take aspirin for stomach aches, kids, also guns = bad
> 
> somewhere along the line i started taking this crackship really, really seriously.

\- - -

_You said I’m stubborn and I never give in_

_I think you’re stubborn except you’re always softening_

_You say I’m selfish, I agree with you on that_

_I think you’re giving out and way too much in fact_

 

_Walking with each other,_

_Think we’d never match at all, but we do_

_Yes we do, do, do, do, do._

-

A part of her childhood she could have done without, Taylor thinks nowadays, is going through that whole phase where she wanted to be like Baby in Dirty Dancing so bad that she told everyone who would listen that she’d never find a guy as great as her dad, before growing up a few years and realizing she had actually been telling the truth all along and karma sucked, big time.

That’s the long way of getting around to saying that Taylor’s a giant fucking lesbian with a giant fucking gay obsession with her best friend, hurray. Thanks, life.

The thing is, Daria is not a nice person. Neither is Taylor, really, when you get right down to it. And sometimes they don’t even like each other. Kelly Regis calls them frenemies, and while Taylor loves a good turn of phrase, she doesn’t think that’s quite the right term for it. At least not from where she’s standing, high up on Mount Pathetic Lesbo.

(Speaking of pathetic, the latest development of Connor Stevens’s monster crush on Jude is that he is now dating said frenemy. Taylor, at least, has yet to sink that low.)

-

Every good story has a flashback, Taylor knows from watching all those hideous hetero chick flicks at Daria’s insistence, and so here’s theirs:

The first class they ever sat together in was homeroom, the first day of fifth grade, and not even by choice.

Taylor only semi-friend in the room had been Emilie Birch, her second-cousin, and so she took the seat next to hers at first. Em never stopped talking for the whole three minutes Taylor sat next to her, the climax arriving when Daria Morisette walked in and sat down a couple rows over. Apparently Daria had made out, _with tongue_ , with Em’s not-so-secret crush over the summer, and she was nothing short of murderous.

And so it was with an ironic sort of relief that Taylor had finally collected her books and moved to her assigned seat next to Daria, as per the teacher’s request. If she had had to hear one more word about the evils of girls who hit puberty before middle school, she would have stabbed herself with a pencil.

As she sat down, Daria gave her a look that made it clear she had heard Emilie talking. “Sure you can handle the stress of sitting next to the school slut?”

Taylor gave her a distinctly unimpressed look. “’School slut’, _puh-lease_. Obviously you haven’t seen what the dance team walks around wearing. At least _they_ know how to own it.” Privately, Taylor had thought Daria kind of knew how to own it too, but as long as they were both being rude to each other, she wasn’t going to say it.

“I’m not a slut because of what I wear, you idiot,” Daria had shot back. “I’m a slut because I date a lot of people.”

Taylor stared pointedly at Daria’s fifth grade cleavage.

“Okay,” Daria muttered. “Maybe it’s a little because of what I wear.”

Points for honesty. And since Taylor has always been nothing if not a strong supporter of Hammurabi’s Law, she said, “I’d wear that shirt too, though. If it was my size.”

Daria snorted. “You don’t have the boobs.”

“One day,” said Taylor flatly, and Daria giggled suddenly.

“You don’t care, do you?” she asked.

“No,” Taylor admitted, and they laughed, and the teacher gave them a scary look, and they laughed some more.

So those were simpler times.

Nowadays their friendship mostly consists of Taylor trying to keep her thoughts PG while she watches Daria dance around her room singing “Womanizer” horrendously off-key. And yeah, if someone years ago had told Taylor that in middle school she’d fall in love not only with a girl, but with a girl who listens religiously to Britney goddamn _Spears_ , she would have laughed in their face and possibly punched them. But here she is.

-

Less than a week into their relationship, Connor and Daria start spending lunch periods all but publicly undressing each other.

Taylor, on the other hand, starts bringing Aspirin to school. Somehow, her stomach always gets a sort of nasty feeling around that time of the day. She also makes her customary jokes about hormones and the like, because what else can she do? Jude just wears his usual rainbow of various hurt expressions. Someone needs to teach that boy to mask his emotions with sarcasm, like a normal miserably-closeted gay teenager.

God, Daria and Connor barely even touch their lunches. How do they do that?

“How gross did the tomato soup taste today?” Daria asks her one day on their way to toss their trays. It’s an old inside joke from back in elementary school, when anything with tomatoes in it consistently tasted like nicotine.

“It was fine,” Taylor responds, refusing to play along as Daria dumps her own untouched bowl in the trash. Then, because Daria looks like she might press the matter: “How did Connor’s tongue taste today?”

Which does the trick.

-

A week or two passes, and fairly quickly at that. Taylor hadn’t thought the Daria/Connor thing would last as long as it has. And yet every day she pals around with Daria until dismissal, and every day she watches her disappear through the school doors with Connor, palms mashed together and the dumbest of dumb sunny expressions on both their faces.

(Taylor knows she’s not being fair. For God’s sake, throughout their whole friendship she’s never even asked Daria if she was straight. And if she really likes Connor, well. It’s going to end bad, obviously, but who is she to interfere?)

(Although she still isn’t sure whether sticking her nose in their business or staying out of it would make her a worse human being.)

-

Anyway, they all go on another group date, like total weirdos.

Going bowling was Daria’s suggestion. Not because it’s sexy or anything, but just because she loves bowling and has always loved bowling and, apparently, can’t fathom why anyone _wouldn’t_ love bowling. This is the kind of Daria that Taylor likes best. Even though this kind of Daria can be both nerdy and sort of obnoxious.

The two of them sit on the lobby bench lacing up their bowling shoes. One of Jude’s shoes had an absolutely revolting moldy spot on it, and so he and Connor are up at the counter getting in line to have it replaced. Or, at least, trying to get in line. Connor seems unable to stop himself from chasing Jude around with the contaminated shoe, which makes it hard for them to hold a spot.

Taylor glances at Daria and wonders how she can possibly remain so oblivious.

Daria looks up like she feels Taylor’s eyes. She grins. “Last time we were here, you actually beat me.”

“Hell yeah I did.” She’d forgotten that. “I smoked you.”

Daria leans in, close enough so that Taylor can smell her normal lavender-y scent hiding under the fruity stuff she sprayed on earlier for Connor’s benefit. “Want to know a secret?”

It’s all Taylor can do to keep her voice from going breathy and hushed. “What?”

“I let you win,” Daria tells her evilly, before bouncing off the bench to join the boys.

Taylor, naturally, objects to this statement vehemently and frequently over the course of the night. If she were totally delusional, she’d say that Daria’s eyes light up just a little brighter with each protest, but in the end whether they do or not really isn’t her call to make.

And while Taylor wholeheartedly disapproves of the whole ‘group date’ concept, that one actually ends up being pretty fun, more like friends and less like one handsy preteen couple and their two depressing tagalongs. But it’s also the last fun date for a while. So there that is.

-

Thanks to Daria, Taylor hasn’t gotten an uninterrupted full night of sleep in weeks. It must be a statement as to Daria’s somewhat corrupting nature that every single dream swims with her glowing smile, her wild hair, and that every night Taylor’s eyes will fly open mid-slumber and she will stare at her bedroom ceiling for hours, for ages, until Daria’s image blinks itself away. It’s at those times that Taylor is most prone to self-honesty. So, therefore, it’s at those times that she really kind of hates herself.

 _What I really need_ , Taylor thinks in the middle of the third week of this ridiculousness _, is a second opinion_. After some deliberation, she also thinks she knows who to try. This settles her enough that she’s able to fall back asleep, and her subconscious replays the usual fare until morning.

(In her dreams, Daria’s eyes are full of roses. The two of them always sit together on the end of a wooden dock that juts out over empty sky, and just as they turn to each other, a hole opens up for Daria to fall through, leaving Taylor’s hands and cheeks and mouth with just the kiss of empty air.)

-

So. Pretty soon it’s daytime, and she can once again muster her usual shield of judgmental snark, and she’s standing on Jude’s moms’ porch ringing the doorbell and trying to pretend that all of her insides don’t suddenly feel like they’ve liquefied.

Lena opens the door instead of her cop wife, which, honestly, thank Christ for that. Taylor manages to swallow at least a little of her nervousness. “Hi, Mrs. Adams Foster.”

Lena’s face is friendly but, at the same time, a total brick wall. There’s nothing there to be read. (A skill that would probably be worth her time to teach to her wide-open book of a son.) “Good morning – Taylor Buono, right? Jude’s friend.”

“Yeah, um.” Taylor shifts her weight. “Yeah.”

“Jude’s actually not here right now, honey. Do you want me to tell him something?”

“No, I’m actually here to – I mean –” _Get it together, Taylor._ She sighs. “Can I ask you some questions?”

-

“Are you sure you came to the right place, Taylor?” Lena asks, handing her a glass of water. Jude may not have inherited his mom’s poker face but, sitting at the Adams Fosters’ sunlit kitchen table, Taylor can see where he picked up his ability to be so chill about the whole, well, gay thing. Not that he’s ever directly spoken to her about it. Not that she’s ever asked. “We’re happy to answer your questions, but – what about your parents? Or have you ever met the school counselor?”

“You guys are the only lesbians I know,” says Taylor bluntly. (In her head she gives Lena points for barely reacting to that at all.)

“Well,” Lena says slowly. “I’m not sure how well I can advise you on this.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’ve been out of junior high for a long time, and every situation is – relative. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Somewhat desperately, Taylor tells her, “Anything you can think of would probably help,” and then immediately feels hot and embarrassed, and she stares into her untouched glass of water, wishing she could cool off in it or maybe drown.

When she finally looks up, Lena makes sympathetic eye contact, which is almost worse. Taylor doesn’t _want_ to be understood or any of that icky personal stuff. She just wants someone to tell her what to do.

“You know, honey,” Lena says suddenly, so caring and warm and _sad_ that Taylor thinks she might tear up if she were that kind of girl, “You still have your friends, and your family, and the things you like to do. Love isn’t everything.”

“Except sometimes it is,” says Taylor before she can stop herself.

Lena sighs and says softly, “Fair enough.”

-

“Are you going to MacKenzie’s birthday party?” Daria asks her while they’re doing homework together on her front lawn the next day. She rolls onto her stomach and swings her legs.

“Nah,” Taylor replies, subtly angling her head so Daria’s figure is no longer in her field of vision. “You probably shouldn’t go either. She says she doesn’t want anyone to come because it’ll be dumb.”

“I wasn’t gonna go,” Daria says defensively. It’s quiet except for the lawnmower noises from down the street until she starts laughing. “Remember what her parents did last year?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Taylor says, suddenly giggling hard enough that she topples over sideways in the grass. “I forgot about that.”

“Freaking black streamers,” Daria says.

“Stop,” Taylor begs her.

“Because it was the only color they could find,” Daria adds.

“Shut up,” says Taylor, now half-laughing, half-coughing violently.

“Taped all over the outside of their _house_.” Daria giggles at the new bout of laughing this final statement inspires, then flops down next to her.

“Go die,” Taylor tells her fondly.

“Then you’d have no friends,” Daria reminds her. Fair enough.

They lay there as the sun sets and the lawnmower peters out, until Taylor sits up.

Daria struggles upwards. “What?”

Taylor grins at her. (Daria has grass in her hair and her shirt is wrinkled weirdly and in an alternate universe Taylor would look at her for as long as she wanted, just look.) “Call MacKenzie. I have, like, the _best_ idea.”

-

Something between them is off the night they sneak out with Connor and Jude. They snipe at each other all evening, shooting mean little pointy-edged things back and forth, stuff that probably seems normal to the boys but means much more to the two of them.

Jude is on edge when he joins their little raiding party, but he loosens up as they fool around outside MacKenzie’s house. By the time they decide on a park to hide out for a few minutes in, he’s cheerful enough to spend the ride there surreptitiously trying to run Connor’s bike off the road, laughing and swerving away when Connor takes a swipe at him.

It’s hard not to be jealous watching them, their dorky little friend group of two. They’ve only ever needed each other. Taylor seems to need more and more people every day, people to keep putting between her and Daria and the ugly things she wants to say about Daria’s other friends. Come to think of it, Connor and Jude kind of are the first real friends she and Daria have ever had in common.

-

Connor and Daria disappear together at some point and Taylor’s stomach starts burning. It’s something she really should have foreseen. She wishes she’d brought an Aspirin or two in her pocket.

Jude joins her on the bench. He’s lucky it’s her he keeps doing this kind of thing to. Any other girl would get the wrong idea.

“Where’d they go?” he asks with an affected casualness, and Taylor stiffens.

“Who knows.” She doesn’t know what makes her say it – probably the past six months or more of mooning pathetically over the so-called slut of the seventh grade – but all of a sudden she’s spitting out with vicious resentment “Maybe they’re having sex,” and Jude’s eyes widen and she immediately feels bad.

“They’re having _sex_?” he says incredulously. (It’s a mark of how much of a better person he is than her that he sounds more worried than jealous.)

“Well, not yet, but Daria’s dying to lose her virginity,” Taylor elaborates apologetically. “At least, that’s what she told me.” _God, Taylor, sound more obviously hurt about it._

Then, because the look Jude is giving her is suddenly too empathetic, too knowing, Taylor tries to kiss him. And when he ducks away awkwardly she tells him “You have a crush on Connor”, puts it up between them like a shield, but it comes out sounding like a confession.

-

She’s wrangled her face back to its usual state of impassivity by the time the Happy Couple join them again. Connor and Jude have their own passive-aggressive micro-fight, and then it’s her and Daria’s turn again, apparently.

“Come on. My dad’s got tons of booze.” Not that Taylor knows exactly what amount constitutes ‘tons of booze’, but hey, she’s willing to bet that none of her companions do either. “Let’s break in and steal some.”

Daria looks amused. “You can’t ‘break in’ to your own house.”

Jude and Connor fidget, exchanging uncomfortable looks with each other while Taylor glares at Daria, who still refuses to do anything but smile condescendingly. “Well, he thinks I’m spending the night at your house.” Which, by the way, is a situation that has by now probably progressed from awkward to downright torturous. “So it’s kind of breaking in.”

“Except you have a _key_.”

“Why d'you gotta take the fun out of everything?” Taylor demands. Daria looks wounded, then angry, then impudent, and she winds her fingers into the weave of Connor’s jacket like she _knows_ , which is impossible of course, it has to be, since Taylor can barely admit it to herself.

Her stomach flips unpleasantly.

Later, even as they troop into her house and she jokes about her mom being dead as a sort of backwards revenge for Daria not already knowing, even as she takes a gulp of nasty, _nasty_  liquid that at least manages to burn semi-pleasantly as it goes down, Taylor is inwardly freaking out about the sleepover at Daria’s house. What if Daria says they might as well just sleep at Taylor’s place? What if she goes home but refuses to let Taylor come with her because she’s still angry from their arguing? What if, worst of all, the sleepover actually _happens_? What then? They haven’t had a sleepover in almost a year, and all those times in the past they always just shared Daria’s twin-size bed. 

Taylor legitimately does not think her psyche can handle that.

Maybe if she just gets really drunk. Maybe then she can drown out whatever messy, sticky feelings might threaten to surface later on. She’s about to reach for the bottle again after Jude takes his first swig and makes a face, Connor giggling at him under his breath, but none of it ends up mattering.

Because then her dad is standing at the foot of the stairs with a gun and her heart completely and utterly stops when he points it without looking and fires.

-

She and Daria sit next to each other in the E.R. waiting room. Jude is across from them with his moms, his face making it clear to paramedics and parents alike that he’s in this for the long haul. As opposed Connor’s actual girlfriend, whose parents are on their way to pick her and Taylor up right now.

Taylor’s dad is in custody. The police assured her that it’s all a formality, he turned himself right in, he’ll be back by morning and is there another guardian they can call? She gave them her mom’s number and it was eventually decided, in a roundabout sort of way, that the Morisettes would drive her home and Mom would meet her at the house.

No sleepover after all.

Taylor is tired and bored and hungry and guilty, and even still, some small part of her can’t not acknowledge how pretty Daria looks even under the fizzling, white-hot hospital lighting. Out the corner of her eye, she sees Daria’s hand pick itself up and move to the shared armrest. It sits there uncertainly for a moment, like it wants to go farther but can’t quite make it. Like some part of Daria thinks they ought to hold hands like they did as fifth graders, nauseous with worry, on the city bus and then in later in the hospital, when all on their own they took Daria’s little brother to the E.R. for smashing his head open on a table corner.

Eventually Daria does speak, but it’s not to say anything Taylor wants to hear. All the same, she can’t be blamed for asking the normal questions: “Why would he do that? Why would he just shoot like that?”

“My dad has anxiety,” says Taylor softly.

Daria is quiet for a few beats. “What, like Ginger with taking tests?” she finally asks.

“No, that’s just Ginger being obnoxious,” Taylor replies automatically before taking a second to think. “It’s more like – it’s a sickness. It makes him sick. So that sometimes he can’t do things, and sometimes he does the wrong thing.”

“Like tonight.”

When Taylor sighs, she feels like she sighs with her whole body. She drops her chin into her hand to hide her face from Daria’s searching eyes. “Yeah.”

They sit silent for a moment, and maybe Taylor’s new position doesn’t hide her face as well as she thought it did, because right when hot tears start sliding into the crook of her elbow, she feels Daria’s hand settle, unsteady but warm, around the crown of her head. The sensation is gone almost before Taylor even registers it, but there’s no doubt that it happened.

It’s enough to stop the tears for a while.

-

School is, Taylor has to admit, weird without Connor.

Jude doesn’t sit with them at lunch, though Taylor does talk with him briefly in the hall. She offers to get him in touch with Connor, because she really feels like she owes it to him, also because how could she not? As much as she denies it, the whole thing really kind of is her fault. And Jude’s situation totally sucks, too. At least one thing she has going for her with the Daria Issue is that neither of their parents are continuously cockblocking them every step of the way.

Daria consumes most of her lunch for the first time in, like, ages. They don’t talk much.

During ninth period Taylor gets a text from her, a halfhearted invite to hang out after she goes to apologize to Connor (but definitely not to Mr. Stevens, not if she can help it) with her dad. She texts back a yes. Why not? It couldn’t possibly be more excruciating than wallowing at home in her room, avoiding her parents and trying not to count all the ways she fucked up.

-

“How’s Connor?” Taylor asks Daria as they wait out front of the school for their respective rides, scuffing up their shoes on the cement and not making more eye contact than necessary.

Daria looks up blankly. “I don’t know.”

“He’s your boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know.” She looks disinterestedly away again.

Taylor takes a deep breath. She manages not to think anything bitter or mean. They scuff their toes for a few more minutes.

Daria breaks their silence, as is her usual prerogative. “I didn’t know that. About your dad. I mean, you never told me.”

Taylor shrugs coolly. “You never asked.”

“Is that why you never let me come over?” Daria asks, looking almost relieved for some reason.

Taylor tries not to read too much into that. Instead she shrugs and lies, “I guess. I never thought about it much.” In actuality it’s been plaguing her for pretty much the entirety of their friendship. Which has always been sort of funny, because with all the other friends Taylor’s had over the years, she’s never cared who saw what her dad was like and what they thought, but right from the start it was different with Daria. Everything was always different with Daria.

Which is a thought Taylor has had many a time, but this particular time, it makes her _angry_.

“How come you didn’t want to tell me?” Daria presses.

Taylor angles her body away pointedly. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t _not_ want to. I just didn’t care.”

Daria remains noiseless for all of two blessed seconds before she says, “Okay, I mean, I get that it’s personal and stuff –”

“God, Daria, what the fuck does it matter?” Taylor asks hotly, and Daria shrinks just slightly, just barely noticeable.

Needless to say, Taylor notices. The part she hates about it the most is that, for a second, she actually enjoys it.

“Look,” she proceeds more dully, “All I’m saying is –”

“Don’t do that,” Daria says suddenly.

Taylor narrows her eyes. “Do what?”

“You always turn off like that, when you’re talking to me. I don’t like it. Just don’t.”

“Well, what else am I going to do?” Taylor asks, which is the first thing she’s said all conversation, apparently, that Daria doesn’t have an answer for. “I have to go,” she continues. “And I don’t think I feel like hanging out tonight either, so.”

“Okay,” Daria manages, like everything is normal. “See you.”

Taylor is already walking away. She pretends not to hear.

-

Another set of days go by. Connor returns to school. Taylor sees him and Jude around, apparently having reconciled, but nowadays she’s eating lunch in the darkroom to (avoid Daria) finish up her final project for Photographic Design, so they don’t speak.

Callie Jacob is in there with her most days, actually – Jude’s sister. At first it made Taylor nervous, but they both just work in silence now.

Until one Friday, after school. Taylor doesn’t really need to stay, but she’s always liked getting her work done early, and she likes it in the darkroom. It’s a calming sort of place.

Or at least it is until your crush’s boyfriend’s crush’s big sister who was once in _freaking juvie_ walks in and starts asking you all sorts of invasive questions about her brother’s love life.

“Yeah, um.” Taylor cuts her eyes to the side, hoping for an escape route to somehow manifest itself there in the darkness. “I don’t know much, I haven’t really seen him lately.”

Callie cocks her head. “And Connor?”

“Not him either. I kind of eat lunch in here, so.”

“You used to eat lunch with them?” Callie asks shrewdly, and Taylor winces.

“My best friend went out with Connor. Or still does, maybe. Like I said, I –”

“You don’t know much,” Callie finishes for her, looking contented for the moment.

Taylor, inwardly, gives a sigh of relief. “Yeah.”

Callie nods, and then casually says, like it isn’t the kind of thing that threatens to stop the world from turning, “There’s a girl in the hall looking for you, by the way. I told her she had to wait outside the darkroom, but she’s probably going to come barging in here as soon as I leave, so.” Callie shoots her a quick smile just like Jude would, impersonal but somehow still all-knowing, and walks out.

And in those few seconds of limbo in between Callie leaving and the darkroom door opening again, Taylor is an absolute wreck.

She tries not to hope one way or another that the person waiting outside is or isn’t who she’s thinking of, because Mom (total hippie that she is) always tells her there’s no point worrying about what might happen since what might happen is only going to happen anyway. But then the door flies open before she has much of a chance to convince herself of _that_.

Yes, obviously it’s Daria. Who else? Taylor hates herself a little bit for the involuntary jump her stomach does when the two of them lock eyes.

And then Daria says the total absolute last thing Taylor is expecting: “I’m sorry.”

Taylor stares at her. “Sorry for what?”

“For dating Connor just to make you mad.”

Taylor thinks her mouth might be hanging open but she can’t really tell, since all of her extremities seem to have gone numb.

Daria rushes on. “I thought that if I made you mad enough, you might do something dumb, like – like kiss me, or something. Because you do dumb things when you get mad. But I think I just made you hate me. Maybe Jude, too.”

“Jude doesn’t hate anybody,” Taylor says, a knee-jerk reaction, before her mind processes everything else Daria just said. “Wait, kissing you would be a dumb thing?”

“Well, I mean, I have a boyfriend. Had. I think. And you hate cheaters.”

“I do,” agrees Taylor absentmindedly, still struggling to comprehend what’s going on. “So you mean you – you like me? In that way?”

“I’ve liked you for a while. You don’t care what people think, and you don’t let me boss you around, and you understand things without anyone having to tell you, and you’re funny but like in a quiet way. I like you,” Daria finishes softly, staring down at her shoes with something like shame. Daria’s got a lot of things to be ashamed of, Taylor thinks, but liking who she likes is not one of them.

This, as it turns out, is the leading factor in her spur-of-the-moment decision to dip her head and kiss Daria Morisette’s downward-facing lips, lifting them up, trying to spell forgiveness out with every touch of her hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m really really sorry,” says Daria over and over again, but Taylor just shakes her head and holds her tighter.

-

Every day after that until the end of the year is her and Daria and Connor and Jude, a plastic picnic table and atrocious cafeteria lunches between them, and maybe this is how it was meant to be from the beginning.

Somehow, _somehow_ , everything ends up working out between the four of them. Maybe this is due in part to the absolute unprecedented absurdity of the situation they were all thrown into, and the sudden need for, at least at school, as many allies as can be found. Maybe it’s because of the partly apologetic, partly relieved way Connor and Daria finally, officially break up, the promise to abstain from judging the other unspoken but nonetheless implied.

Connor and Daria on one side of the table with Taylor and Jude on the other is how it’s always been, and so that’s how it goes for a few days, no one wanting to make anyone else uncomfortable. Eventually, though, it becomes nothing less than pure torment. For everyone involved.

And so Taylor makes a sudden frustrated noise, surprising even herself, and points at Daria, then Jude. “Switch places.”

Daria just stares, but Jude has stood up and picked up his tray almost before Taylor is done talking.

As they make the switch and Taylor scoots over to give Daria more personal space (but not too much), Connor’s eyebrows knit together. “I… thought you were pissed at Daria.”

“I’m only pissed at her when she has her tongue down your throat.” She unwraps her sandwich calmly. “No offense.”

“Offense taken,” says Daria, affronted.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Taylor tells her. Daria squints at her and pinches her side, but lets it go.

Taylor makes the executive decision to eat her sandwich one-handed, the other hand resting on Daria’s knee under the table, fingers tangled together. It’s nice. Well, it’s more than nice, really, but that’s not the sort of thing she’s ever been very good at putting into words. Across from them, Connor points at Taylor’s cucumber and tells a dirty joke, getting a jab in the side from Jude for his efforts while Daria snickers appreciatively.

Taylor leans against her, just a little. A sliver of sun peeks through the gap between two clouds.

The kids at school are calling her dad a psycho and calling her a dyke, and Connor’s dad is an asshole, and they all four of them have a long hard road ahead, but in that moment Taylor can’t possibly be anything but shatteringly happy.

\- - - - -

**Author's Note:**

> come hang with me at alikwrites on tumblr if you want to scream about taylor/daria, jonnor, the fosters, or life in general! my body is always ready for a fandom screamfest


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